


Shelter of the Wardens

by Maybethings



Series: May Be Promptin' [8]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Other, Prompt Fic, cookie butter, spekuloospasta, spot the references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-09-19
Updated: 2012-09-11
Packaged: 2017-11-03 20:57:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maybethings/pseuds/Maybethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU drabbles with the Grey Wardens: a no-kill cat shelter somewhere in modern Ferelden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sten's New Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Serindrana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serindrana/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Promptfic. Sten, Cat Shelter, have whoever else you want be there

He didn't look like an ex-con, Wynne noted. No piercings, no tattoos, no missing teeth. Just a large, solemn, dark-skinned man with an expression bordering on a permanent scowl, and hair almost as white as her own pulled into large, tight cornrows. His faded jeans and dark T-shirt could have come from any store in the area. His boots were patched, but sturdy and clean. He stood before her, arms folded behind him at ease like a soldier.

"So you want to work with the Grey Wardens?" she asked.

"I was assigned here to seek my atonement," he responded in deep, formal tones. Odd choice of words. Perhaps he was an immigrant. She immediately chided herself for such thoughts and pressed on.

"Well, we are short on staff at the moment. Are you good with animals, um..."

"Call me Sten. I am uncertain how to answer your question."

"Then you'll have to show me, young man. Follow me." She rose with a grace that belied her age, and led him out of her office. He followed at a short distance, matching her pace step for step as she took him through the shelter. On one side, Leliana and Zevran were showing a boy and his mother how to care for their new acquisition, a marmalade kitten with ears like sails; on the other, Alistair was supervising their new intern, a girl with dark hair and an insouciant air.

She took him into a back room, past the meowing and purring, and shut the door behind her. The air was cool and still here, and smelt of animal. Under a window, in a pool of light, a skinny blond man was making unintelligible noises over a box of kittens. His hair was pulled back into a rough, short ponytail, and his Grey Warden T-shirt fit loosely on his spare frame. He looked up at the sound of the door, and smiled a watery smile at Wynne.

"Good morning, milady."

"Hello Anders. You've been here all morning?"

"Yeah." He fingered the furry collar of his jacket, the one he hadn't had time to take off. "Came in for the small ones. Didn't want to leave them alone too long."

"What are you doing with them?" Sten interrupted.

"Bwuh?" Anders suddenly realised there was a third person in the room. "Oh. Uh. Someone left a box of kittens on the doorstep last evening. In the rain. These poor things are too little to be left alone." He indicated the towel-lined box he was straddling, full of balls of tiny, mewling fluff.

Sten loomed over the kittens, brow creased as if deep in thought. "These are too small."

"Of course they're too small!" Anders snapped. "Some jackass probably didn't spay his pet, or didn't know enough—or care enough!—to keep them until they could survive without their mother! Right now, we're all they've got." One of the balls of fluff mrowled. "Shh, there there, Pounce."

"...Anders, you named them?" Wynne sighed.

"Here's Pounce, and this one's Izzy, and Merrill and Greg--"

" _Anders_."

"Sorry. I know. No naming anything." He looked so crestfallen Wynne almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

Sten prodded the kittens with blunt fingers, listening to the tone and timbre of their squeaks. The last, a silvery grey all over, put out a paddy paw and clung on to this new and interesting object, gumming it enthusiastically at the same time. Anders' eyebrows went up as he glanced at Wynne. Wynne glanced at her job candidate. And Sten's eyes did not leave the wriggling kitten. Slowly, he ran his hands down its spine.

"They will live," he intoned slowly, not so much a statement as a promise. Wynne knew right then they'd found their man.


	2. Nate Catsits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Promptfic. Cauthrien/Nathaniel.

“You don’t really strike me as a cat person,” Cauth said, arms folded squarely across her chest as she eyed Nathaniel feeding the orange tabby. The cat turned to her, and meowed once in the most unimpressed tone of voice she’d ever heard from an animal.

“I’be nod,” said Nate as the cat purred, batting at his fingers. He paused to wipe his nose on his shirt-shoulder, and recanted. “I’m not. Anders asked me to foster Pounce while he was out of town. Where he’s going, pets aren’t allowed.”

“Cats are capricious,” she said, turning with a shrug to the newspapers and straightening all the errant pages. “They’re aloof and strong-willed. You can’t fathom what’s going on in their heads. I’m not a cat person at all.”

“Not in the way you think it means, no,” said Nathaniel, and while he suddenly wished to see if she would purr when he slipped a hand under her jawbone, he remained prudently silent.


	3. Sten tries Spekuloospasta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point in the story, ex-convict!Sten is rooming with two cousins: Mina and Natia. (Thera)Mina's the Warden in the [Alphabet of The Sten](http://archiveofourown.org/works/364487), and Natia you may know from the [Grey Warden and Short Taarbas](http://archiveofourown.org/series/16723) series. Either way, spiritual relation just became actual.

“This does not look like cookies.” Sten squinted at the jar, filled with a brown paste that wasn’t peanut butter, or the Nutella his flatmate hankered for. It was…something.

“Technically speaking, they were cookies,” Natia explained, stirring sugar into her tea. “I don’t know specifics, but they grind up the spice cookies and make it into a spread. It’s called cookie butter. Kind of hot now. Try some!”

With a grimace, he opened the jar and scraped a little off with a knife, tasting tentatively. He needn’t have worried. Natia saw his features go slack as the stuff touched his tongue.

“Good?” she beamed.

“There is hope for this world yet,” Sten said cryptically, and set the cookie butter down with visible reluctance.


	4. Mina and Sten at the bank

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt. Brosca and Sten AU, going to the bank with no food allowed inside.

“Oh come on,” Mina protested. “It’s in a _sealed jar_. I’m not going to open it. I’ve been banking with Dryden for years now. They know I’m no hooligan.”

“Sorry,” the security guard said apologetically, but firmly. “It’s still not allowed. No food in the bank.”

“I will wait outside with the groceries,” Sten huffed impatiently, holding his hand out for the brown-and-yellow Seekermart bag. “Go in and settle your banking, or we’ll be delayed even more.”

“Y’sure?” Mina canted her head curiously at him. “Y’don’t mind?”

“No.” His hand remained extended.

“All right then. I won’t be long.” She handed him their shopping and with one final withering glare at the guard, stepped into the air-conditioned, too-bright confines of the bank.

True to his word, Sten waited next to the door: at ease, shoulders back, legs slightly apart. He looked even more foreboding than the actual security. People started walking _around_ Dryden Merchant Bank and into Gorim  & Tethras Finances across the street instead.

Mina looked through the glass wall as she filled in her forms, smirked, and proceeded to pen in every remaining field with slow, excruciating neatness.


	5. Cousin to Cousin

“Are you sure he’s, you know— _safe_?” Natia drums her nails nervously on the side of her coffee mug.

“He’s good.” Mina paused to take a sip of her tea. “Wouldn’t hurt a fly, unless the fly was, I don’t know, abandoning the Qun or something.”

“Animals are not enlightened. They cannot follow the Qun,” Sten mumbled as he shuffled past them, half-dressed, half-asleep and groping for the tea caddy.


End file.
